OF DIGESTION. 173 



far more important. Eat slowly and masticate thoroughly, and the 

 kind of food eaten, however noxious, will rarely break down the 

 stomach, but eating the best selection of food fast will ruin almost 

 any stomach. How can the gastric juice penetrate the food unless 

 it is mashed fine 1 Food deposited in chunks defies its solvent 

 power fo-r a long time, meanwhile irritating and weakening its 

 power ; whereas, if it were well crushed before it entered the 

 stomach, this juice could penetrate or get hold of it, and digest it 

 before fermentation occurred." 



DISEASES OF THE STOMACH AND BOWELS. 



Cancer is a disease which attacks the stomach after the middle 

 period of life is passed ; it consists in a thickening of the coats 

 of the stomach, forming a growth which sometimes can be felt 

 even from the outside. It produces the most distressing symp- 

 toms, burning heat, constant craving for food and drink, with in- 

 ability to retain them, and at length the patient dies. 



Inflammation of the bowels takes place after exposure to cold, or 

 the swallowing improper food. Some pain marks its approach, and 

 generally obstinate costiveness, and requires active treatment. 



A not uncommon complaint connected with the belly, particu- 

 larly among the laboring population, is rupture. This consists in a 

 portion of the bowels being forced out from their natural position, 

 through some weak point in the walls of the belly, forming a swell- 

 ing, covered by the skin. This swelling requires to be pressed up in 

 a recumbent position, and means used to keep it from coming down 

 again. The apparatus used is generally a truss, consisting of a 

 steel spring covered with leather, which goes round the waist, having 

 a pad at one end, for making pressure on the weak part. Some- 

 times the rupture becomes strangulated, that is to say, it swells so 

 that it cannot be replaced, and then it would mortify, so that death 

 would be the inevitable consequence, were not means adopted by 

 which the stricture is dilated, and the protruded parts returned. 



In speaking of morbid states of the stomach and bowels, I should 

 not omit to mention' the curious but simple means by which poisons 

 are now easily withdrawn from the stomach. A gum-elastic tube, 

 about the thickness of one's little finger, is passed down the throat 

 into the stomach, and a brass pump which holds about half a pint, is 

 attached to the end of it. Two or three pints of warm water are now 

 thrown into the stomach, to dilute the matters there, and the whole 

 contents are then easily withdrawn. The syringe can act either as 



